NetworkWorld has a Green Momentum article.

There is no topic hotter than global warming. After all, Al Gore won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his work in raising awareness, his movie "An Inconvenient Truth" won an Oscar, and terms like "carbon footprint" are now part of the common lexicon. 

 

So is green just the buzzword of the day? Is it a fad? And what does all this have to do with IT?

Ted Samson from Infoworld does a good job of recapping the Green IT events of the year, providing a high level view of the different vendors who have green IT solutions.

Infoworld has an article with comments from a broad range of companies. The most interesting comments I found are:

Paul Marcoux, vice president of engineering, Cisco development operations, and "green guru," Cisco
Website: Cisco corporate social responsibility page
1. Heading into 2008, companies will continue to emphasize their social responsibility behavior, creating an environment for industry leaders to combine the power of innovation with collaboration to create the most sustainable model for addressing global climate change. As a result, across business and IT functions, we'll begin to see industry standards and green languages emerge in 2008 to foster greater communication and collaboration.

2. If you can't measure it; you can't manage it. In 2008, we'll see a slew of technologies developed to offer real-time monitoring intelligence to measure energy consumption for products. By 2009, there will be few products available that cannot be monitored for energy consumption.

Pat Tiernan, VP of social and environmental responsibility, HP
Website: HP's environmental sustainability page
Green IT will have a more significant focus as we move into 2008. This includes designing products with the entire lifecycle in mind. In addition to energy use, companies will be more vigilant in implementing plans for disposal, reuse, and recycling. Green strategy will also become an argument for the optimization of IT resources, as well as for saving money, with more energy-efficient products.

It hasn't happened yet, but I am keeping my eyes open for the web site that says visiting its site is good for the environment due to its zero carbon emissions or renewable energy.

MSNBC has an article that Organic Distillers are marketing that they are good for the environment.

Drink this and you may feel pleasantly green

Organic distillers, brewers hope eco-sensitive brands will catch on

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By Jennifer Alsever

MSNBC contributor

updated 4:12 p.m. PT, Wed., Dec. 19, 2007

When sipping that beer or vodka tonic at the next holiday party, take heart: Your revelry may actually be good for the environment.

Or at least that’s the pitch coming from makers of organic tequila, gin, vodka, brandy, beer and wine that are finding their way onto store shelves and fine restaurant menus — all in the name of healthier socializing and being green.

“Sip tequila and save the world, that’s our motto,” said Enrico Caruso, senior vice president of sales for 4 Copas Tequila, a Newport Beach, Calif., maker of tequila that is certified organic by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Caruso said 4 Copas uses no pesticides or chemicals in farming the agave plants used in its tequila and uses only organic yeast in fermentation.

At $42 to $80, 4 Copas tequila is not cheap, but it is certified organic. View related photos

CXOToday.com has an article about Green Data Center initiatives in India, and momentum is building.

Green data center movement is gathering momentum in India as organizations have started realizing its importance in energy conservation and sustainable development. It is applied to new technologies that can help in cutting down data center energy costs and saving energy, which is synonymous to saving money. It has a big role to play in reducing the power consumption in the data center.

Raritan has planned to come up with a power management solution in India in January 2008. According to Sanjay Motwani, country manager of Raritan India, "Power management tools facilitate less power consumption and so cooling time of data center is reduced and so it helps in promoting the green data center movement".

Kumar further added that for green data centers, the network should be converged and managed effectively. The network needs to be consolidated and energy conservation should be kept in mind while designing the data center. He suggested "TIA 942 data center standard in cabling, which talks about every aspect of cabling with the data center should be followed to promote the concept of green data center."

Companies are now more concerned about environment and energy saving models, so the future of green data center concept is bright in India. According to Motwani, the green data center concept is new in India but organizations have started realizing its importance. He believes that it has started picking up, and in future, it would be completely adopted.